Seeing Phaneuf's career path is pretty depressing given how good he could have been. I maintain it was this Cleary hit in 2007 that ruined him. He had a good 2007-2008 season, but I think this was the first of a few injuries that drastically changed his playing style. Whether it was a physical limitation or a mental one, he lost that game-breaker attribute he possessed.
Seeing Phaneuf's career path is pretty depressing given how good he could have been. I maintain it was this Cleary hit in 2007 that ruined him. He had a good 2007-2008 season, but I think this was the first of a few injuries that drastically changed his playing style. Whether it was a physical limitation or a mental one, he lost that game-breaker attribute he possessed.
I think it was the hip/back injury he suffered.
I remember reading a poster commenting on how Phaneuf was now turning to hit guys with the other shoulder. Drastically limits your effectiveness when you're only comfortable hitting a guy on one side of your body.
That cleary hit though, I remember that well. Sad game that was.
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I remember reading a poster commenting on how Phaneuf was now turning to hit guys with the other shoulder. Drastically limits your effectiveness when you're only comfortable hitting a guy on one side of your body.
That cleary hit though, I remember that well. Sad game that was.
Yeah, it was more the hip injury... it was really then things went down hill. It really was sad, after his dominating WJC performance.
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"With a coach and a player, sometimes there's just so much respect there that it's boils over"
-Taylor Hall
When we signed Bouwmeester I thought we would have the best defensive line-up I've ever seen in the NHL. Going into that year I thought we had 3 of Team Canada's starting defensemen for the 2010 Olympics. Whoddathunk it would go so horribly, horribly wrong. In retrospect I blame Brent Sutter for stubbornly sticking with defensive pairings that didn't work. We weren't even playing all that bad before Daryl pulled the trigger on that deal & the Jokinen/Kotalik/Higgins joke of a trade. That was a sad week for sure.
